Cairo to host ICANN meeting in November

Egypt will host the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' 33rd International Public Meeting in November, after Kenya lost the bid on security grounds.

Nairobi won the bid to host the meeting last year, but the post-election crisis forced ICANN to change the venue to Cairo. Kenya had campaigned for two years to have the meeting.

After former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan brokered a peace deal in February, the ICT fraternity in Kenya had hoped to convince ICANN that Kenya is stable enough to host the meeting. But the political bickering and blurred terms of the coalition government did not indicate that Kenya would be politically stable by the end of the year.

The ICANN board accepted the proposal made by Egypt's National Telecom Regulatory Authority on April 28 to host the meeting, from Nov. 2-7.

This will be an exciting meeting for ICANN since it marks its 10th anniversary, and it's fitting that it will be in Egypt, said Paul Levins, ICANN executive officer and vice president for corporate affairs. Egypt, along with other nations, has played a key role in moving internationalized domain names forward, Levins added.

ICANN holds three meetings annually in different parts of the world. They are an essential part of ICANN's global consensus-building and outreach efforts. The ICANN Meetings Committee sets the regions in which ICANN will hold its meetings. Proposals are then solicited from organizations interested in hosting the meetings, Levin said.

Kenya’s bid was submitted by the board of the Kenya Information Centre (Kenic), the trustee of the .co.ke top-level country domain, on behalf of the private sector and the government. A team comprising government, private sector and the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) supported Kenic in marketing Kenya as a destination for work and leisure.